• German composer Karl Stamitz.
• Italian physicist Allesandro Volta.
• Norwegian poet Johan Nordahl Brun.
• Pennsylvania physician and statesman Benjamin Rush.
• Norwegian mathematician Caspar Wessel, inventor of complex numbers.
• American author Olaudah Equiano, in Africa.
• English playwright Hannah More.
• American theologian Johnathan Edwards (Junior).
• Italian composer Maddalena Sirme.
• Scottish novelist Henry Mackenzie.
• American naval pioneer John Barry, called "Father of the American Navy", in Ireland.
• American statesman and diplomat John Jay.
• Jean Baptiste Pont DuSable, first settler of Chicago.

• British satirist and curmudgeon Jonathan Swift.
• English author and politician Sir Robert Walpole.
• Czech musician and composer Jan Dismas Zelenka.
• English poet Thomas Warton.
• French architect Pierre-Alexis Delamair.
• French composer Antoine Forqueray.
• Charles VII, king of Bavaria and Holy Roman Emperor.

• King George's War/War of the Austrian Succession:
• (May 11) Marshal Saxe of France delivers Great Britain's Duke of Cumberland a severe defeat at the Battle of Fontenoy.  This allows Saxe to eventually conquer the Austrian Netherlands.
• (June 14) Massachusetts forces capture the French fortress of Louisbourg on Cape Breton Island.
• (August on) Mikmaq warriors raid towns in Maine.
• (Jacobite Rebellion) The French government mounts an expedition to cause an uprising in Scotland using Charles Edward Stewart, aka "Bonnie Prince Charlie" to stir up the Highland Clans.
• (July 25) Stewart evades the British fleet and arrives in Scotland with a handful of men. The clan chiefs tell him to go away.
• Stewart blackmails the clan chiefs into giving him an army.
• (September 17) Stewart takes Edinburgh with no resistance.
• (September 21) (Battle of Prestonpans) Stewart's army defeats the meager British garrison, the survivors of which flee to Berwick.
• Stewart leads the clans down into northern England, reaching as far south as Derby (December 4).
• There is panic in London.
• George II recalls the British army from the Continent.
• Stewart's generals outvote him and they return to Scotland (December 20), with the British army in pursuit.
• (November 28) Iroquois raiders burn Saratoga.
• The husband of Austrian Empress Maria Theresa is elected Holy Roman Emperor Francis I.
• Prussia under Frederick II re-enters the war in January (Second Silesian War).  He finishes by December, when the Treaty of Dresden confirms Prussian possession of Silesia.
• British King George II sues for peace.
• Pope Benedict XIV issues an encyclical, On Usury and Other Dishonest Profit, proclaiming the charging of interest a sin.
• 'God Save The King' is performed publicly for the first time.

1744 - 1745 - 1746

How They Were Made - 18th Century